Thefunniest stuff

For Rover

How I love this stuff

Legen........wait for it........DARY!

My dad used to fly into a rage every time he saw the original!

Beat an 81!!

Yeah I pretty much stink at US Geography. I received an 81 (B-) on the 50 states.

You have to draw them by connecting the dots and then fill in the bubble of the states name.

Good Luck



Oh and do the Freerice.org thing and beat my score of 44 after 400+ questions.

Just for my ego's sake.

Is your vocabulary better than mine?

Lets find out.

Go to http://freerice.com/index.php

And play the game. For every right answer you will win 10 grains of rice for the starving masses, thanks to the UN and some donors. It also keeps track fo your vocabulary score.

I am currently at a score of 44 and I've donated 4940 grains of rice (I've answered 494 questions)


Give it a shot!

Half Life in 60 Seconds

I love youtube.

Vanity Cards for Battlestar Galactica

The little end clip for the production companies of shows are called vanity cards. Wired.com had this posted exhibiting the 2 seasons worth of vanity cards.

New Favorite

Chezzitttsss!!!!

Wow I'm out there.

Proteinstar is out in the world wide web. More so than my meatspace alter ego.

Prepare yourself for a major addition to Exostra. The bathroom is nearly done.

Well, it feels good to be back on the blog. I'll be right back.

Superprank

Mr. Shoop's getting married! We wanted to help explain some of the upcoming evening athletic events.

The Computer is Down...I repeat...

The computer is down!

I am posting this at my local library. shudder.

My power supply (I think) is shot and I can't find my spare. I'm sure it is in one of the many unpacked boxes. Be prepared for a deluge of posts once it is up and running.

Since I'm on a Family Guy Kick

This is the sole reason I don't defend myself against The Spouse's Righteous Rage, even when Little Tikes furniture is hurtling though the air.



I might make my beat down worse.

That's not a moon! It's a sportsbar!

Since China now controls their weather

and will ensure that the olympics will be rain free I thought I'd look back at a great little routine by Stewie.

Halo 3 Movie

Now I know this was old news. Halo 3 movie, executive produced by Peter Jackson, all effects by Weta. How the movie companies said no is beyond me. IDIOTS.

But Weta went ahead and made a ton of props and the original director, Neill Blomkamp, went and made a ton of live action shorts for the new Halo 3 game. Microsoft footed the bill.



Tell me those Hollywood suits aren't going to be knocking in Neill's and Peter's doors begging for a piece.

Couldn't have said it better myself

The following review, by a dude named Vern has some language but is nearly identical to my current way of thinking regarding the Transformers movie.

Ahem, go ahead Vern.


Vern vs. TRANSFORMERS - One shall stand and one shall fall...

(edited first two paragraphs forr the sake of length)

So it's fitting that the movie begins in "QATAR - THE MIDDLE EAST." (Need to establish location and tell the audience you think they're idiots at the same time? Try subtitles!) An American army base is attacked by a big robot. These guys are apparently trained in a similar manner to the soldiers from THE HILLS HAVE EYES REMAKE 2, because they all just run away and don't fight. When you see all the military hardware fetishistically on display it seems kind of weird, because the robot doesn't look like it has a chance. But then some tanks fly through the air and you find out later that all but the handful of main characters were killed and nobody knew it was a robot that did it.

At this point I was trying. I secured my brain safely in a locker at the Greyhound station like you're supposed to and I attempted to lower my standards. I am a guy who enjoys Brian Bosworth movies so why not enjoy this shit? Plus, if I'm gonna watch a Michael Bay movie again it might as well be one about robots. They won't joke as much as Martin Lawrence and they'll either look cool or funny. At least the effects are in good hands. And ever since I heard Michael Bay was hired for this job I thought it was tailor made for him. The dude is obsessed with sports cars and has never felt a human emotion, how could you do better than hiring him to make a huge expensive movie where the main characters are cars? It's like God made up The Transformers just to get some use out of Michael Bay.

But Michael Bay told God to fuck off, and he went and made a movie about people. After that opening attack you get literally an hour of kiddie movie horse shit about Shia LeBeouf being a nerd and trying to hit on the adult car mechanic Maxim cover girl with a troubled past from his high school. He buys an old yellow Camaro which turns out to actually be a robot from space in disguise. I don't know if I need to explain this to you guys, but Transformers are robots from space and you know those Cirque Du Soleil type weirdos in the car commercial who contort themselves into the shape of a car? It's like that, they crash land on earth and are worried people will make fun of them so they pretend to be cars and planes and shit to fit in. Anyway, for the first hour of this movie his car is alive but mostly is not a robot, he just causes a ruckus by driving around doing donuts and playing funny songs on his radio.

I have learned while this movie was being made that many grown adults grew up on this toy cartoon and hold its characters and concepts deep in their hearts, and were concerned about their portrayal in the movie. And I myself revere the filmatic language, and was worried that I would get dizzy and confused by Michael Bay's double-flip-off approach to editing and camera movement. Well let me tell you, he probaly blows it on both counts, but both are entirely irrelevant. By the time the movie gets to a second robot or action scene it's already way too late to turn things around. This painful first hour shows that the movie's main problem is the same one as BAD BOYS 2: constant, embarrassingly unfunny jokes. Is it too difficult to take anything seriously anymore? Everything's gotta be wacky: Shia has a little dog with a cast and he feeds it painkillers. He rides a pink girls' bike and crashes in front of the girl he likes. A robot pulls his pants down so he's in his boxers. Anthony Anderson eats a bunch of donuts. Bernie Mac's mom flips him the bird. A fat guy dances. When robots attack later, there are lots of half-assed "jokes" about little kids saying "cool!" or comparing it to ARMAGEDDON or thinking a robot is the tooth fairy. The "jokes" are more rapid-fire than a DTV Leslie Nielsen movie, and with an equal or lesser success rate. Even in that opening robot attack they don't have the discipline to take it seriously for 60 fuckin seconds, they have to have the guy from TURISTAS who looks like Johnny Knoxville on the phone arguing with a cartoonish Indian operator (ooh, topical) while Tyrese keeps yelling something about his left ass cheek. The music sounds like John Carpenter or TERMINATOR but the composer seems to be the only one making any effort to create drama. Everybody else is assuming the effects people will put that in later.

For a movie produced by Spielberg it's surprisingly low on awe. People are supposed to be surprised to see robots, but they always turn it into jokes. There's not one second in the movie where you believe people are really reacting to seeing robots. In JURASSIC PARK or in WAR OF THE WORLDS or many other Spielberg movies, you believed these people really were having their minds blown by what was standing right in front of them. In TRANSFORMERS they say things like "It's a robot. You know, like a super advanced robot. It's probably Japanese," and you're supposed to laugh.

And half the time nobody even notices the robots. I should mention there is one other robot in this part of the movie, a little bad guy robot who makes wacky troll noises while hacking into the Pentagon computer. I think he's supposed to be the cute comic relief character, a bad idea since there is no drama or tension to relieve. He crawls around, over and through hundreds of humans waving his many limbs all over and making loud grunts and power tool noises without ever once being detected. Either these robots are invisible or the people in charge of our national security are even more incompetent than anyone ever imagined.

So you got this hour of waiting for it to get to the god damn robots, and then when it happens you realize you don't like them that much more than the people. Admittedly, they are the one thing that makes this more watchable than the other Michael Bay movies. From the ones I've seen I think this is his worst movie, but it's bad in a more fascinating way, like a $200 million version of that tv show "Power Rangers." After a good hour fifteen of failed jokes, the probably-meant-to-be-serious introduction of the good guy Transformers is finally laugh out loud hilarious. They just look so fucking silly posing and saying their names and they talk in voices just like the old cartoons, so it almost seems like one of those meta-ironical type movies like FAT ALBERT or THE BRADY BUNCH where TV characters come to life in the "real" world to show how goofy they are. And this is one of the great "did I really just see that?" moments when one of the robots says something along the lines of "Yo yo yo wussssUUUUUUPPPP Autobots REPRESENT!" and I don't think he was eating robotic chicken or watermelon but I swear to you on my mother's grave that he started breakdancing. And I'm sure black stereotype robot was in other parts of the movie but the next time I was sure it was the same character was at the end when Optimus Prime was casually holding his broken-in-half corpse like it was the pieces of a plate he dropped.

But before it gets to the fighting, buckle up for a whole lot more "comedy." There's a section, probaly originally planned as a sitcom pilot but then used as part of the movie, where the robots hide in Shia's backyard. They break things and say "funny" lines and try not to be spotted when Shia's parents look out the window. This seems to support the "Transformers are invisible" theory because they're fucking 50 feet tall and shaking the earth with every step but nobody sees them. In fact, they might be like the Velveteen Rabbit or whatever the children's story is where only a kid can see them and adults can't because they don't have the magic of childlike innocence in their hearts or whatever. Anyway, Shia is able to get into his bedroom and his parents accuse him of jerkin off, and you can imagine all the "comedy" "gold" they are able to squeeze out by riffing on that one. I think it's supposed to be funny to see the serious Transformers characters involved in this sort of wackiness, but since they have not yet portrayed in a serious light there is nothing to contrast it with.

At this point the movie is beyond feature length and then they introduce a new villain, John Turturro as a Men In Black type agent under the mistaken impression that he's being funny. His performance is over-the-top enough to fit in in a movie like SPACE JAM or ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE, that is what they would like to do with his talents. And it keeps cutting away to a parallel storyline about a team of NSA analysts (all shaggy-haired twentysomething hipsters) and secretary of defense John Voight and Anthony Anderson playing Kevin Smith's character from LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD and a giant alien cube discovered in ice by Shia's great great grandfather. And all the robots are here on earth to find a pair of glasses, which are in Shia's bedroom in a backpack, so it should probaly have taken 30 seconds of screen time to get to them instead of 90 minutes. There is a part that I almost think I might've dreamed but I remember it so vividly, where there is a cartoon BOING! sound and then there's a long shot of one of the robots proudly pissing all over John Turturro. This guy has toiled away in independent film for decades, done so much great work and in order to get a pay check he has to get R. Kellyed by a fucking cartoon robot. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be funny or if it's supposed to be sexy but it failed on both counts. And then all the sudden Shia's car/robot/pet gets shocked and dragged away on cables and the score turns into violins like it's SCHINDLER'S LIST. It is an understatement to say that this heartwrenching music is not earned. It's like if Jennifer Love Hewitt's character in GARFIELD found out she had cancer and we were expected to get choked up.

Towards the end the movie starts to be more about Transformers. But if any of the filmatists were interested in turning them into actual characters they must've been too busy running errands or something to add that into the movie. Optimus Prime is pretty funny because he speaks almost entirely in platitudes. My guess is they didn't have time to write or record dialogue for him so they just used a key chain where you push buttons and different Transformers soundbites come out. His voice is awesome, the only thing resembling gravitas in the movie. He is shamelessly corny and old fashioned, while every other element of the movie is trying to be irreverent and self aware. So it's so out of place you gotta laugh any time he speaks.

I guess this is the part that people wanted, the BIG ACTION SEQUENCE where robots chase a boy carrying a cube over buildings. Some robots do flips and fight each other. The effects are obviously very expensive and somebody worked a long time on making them, so way to go, E for Effort. But I think the Lord would agree with me when I say Jesus Christ, if this is what you guys consider exciting action sequences I don't even know how to relate to you anymore.

Imagine you took apart a whole bunch of cars, mixed the parts up and welded them all together into a giant ball maybe 15 or 20 feet in diameter, then rolled it down a hill. Shoot that in closeup and you got every fight scene in this movie. I'm sure the Michael Bay style is a huge contributing factor, but I'm pretty sure you could've shot these fights with a stationary camera like a boxing match and I still would have no clue what the fuck was going on. I am no expert on robotics but to my untrained eye, these robots look like shit. Their designs are so overly complicated you can't tell which part is which. One robot (I think a bad guy robot, but not sure) goes flipping through the air in slow motion and while staring at it I was not entirely sure which end was up. There are scenes that are close on Optimus's face while he's talking where I could not even make out a face. I never knew which robot was which or who was a good guy or bad guy or what vehicle was what robot. Luckily Optimus has a shiny blue part on him, occasionally I would see shiny blue and know that hey, that's Optimus! I spotted one!

What Michael Bay has already done to action editing and staging he has now done to character design. If Walt Disney really was a frozen head he would probaly be driven out of hiding to bite Michael Bay's nose off for what he has done here. I don't think the animation is very good either, they all move too fast and seem kind of weightless and don't know how to stand still, but it's kind of pointless to even get into that when they just look so god damn ugly and confusing that even in slow motion they disgrace the many talented artists who were roped into working on this shit. If you're gonna make us wait two hours for a big dumb robot fight at least make robots that we can tell apart or can distinguish what they are doing or which part of their body is the head. In a Godzilla movie I can tell which one is Godzilla and which one is Mothra without studying it frame by frame and comparing it to charts and diagrams.

In the interest of balance, I will say some nice things about the movie. There's a part where the Transformers are in car form and they are driving around, they are all brand new and shiny stupid looking vehicles and it's shot like a car commercial. That was pretty funny. Also, it was nice that the horrible rock music only came on about four or five times, not constantly like in the cartoon version. The military stuff, sometimes that reminded me of the old '80s action movies, all this military hardware they were showing. The constant ludicrousness of every single aspect of the movie makes it less boring than many bad movies, like a GHOST RIDER or a NATIONAL TREASURE. And, the, uh-- I guess I haven't seen a side wheely in a movie in a while. I don't know. I'm sure there are other positive aspects.

I can't remember the last time I saw a movie that left me this befuddled that it actually existed. Now I know how your parents felt when they took you to see TRANSFORMERS THE MOVIE. "Well, I guess this is what kids like now. Huh." I mean look, Moriarty's main argument was that the movie "delivers" and you can't argue with a movie "delivering." But fuck man, I guess I don't know what "delivery" is then. To me, this was an awe-inspiringly awful mess from start to finish, with no good characters, no sense of tension or drama, an asinine plot, badly told, full of constant, annoying attempts at humor, muddled action sequences and effects that hurt your brain trying to look at them. If you people are complaining about something like SPIDER-MAN 3 being too silly and then giving this one a pass, I don't know what the fuck is going on. The best "characters" in the movie are the robots during the 5 or 10 minutes when they're trying to be serious, and those scenes come off campier than SHOWGIRLS. I haven't seen FANTASTIC FOUR 2 but I can't imagine it could be THAT much more moronic, poorly executed and groan-inducing than this one. I mean this one really is off the charts, it's a record breaker. It probaly required alien technology to make it like this.

I know it's not fair to drop the B&R bomb, it's like comparing people to Hitler in political discussion. But TRANSFORMERS is honestly approaching BATMAN AND ROBIN proportions of horribleness. You can't say it's as bad, because the lighting is nice and nobody's wearing rubber fetish costumes or pink gorilla suits, but it's a similar type of minding-numbing machine gun barrage of moronic, inept garbage. And it goes on for almost 2 1/2 hours, longer than some interrogations.

So in a way, that does explain to me why some people might enjoy this. Some people like to be whipped and peed on. And it's an instant camp classic. I know people who get a good laugh out of shitty movies like INDEPENDENCE DAY, and I will definitely demand that they see this shit on video, because it makes INDEPENDENCE DAY look like 2001. It's so full of quick cuts and preposterousness I'm sure I missed all kinds of things. They were already onto the next scene by the time my brain processed the fact that I had just seen a Mountain Dew machine transform into a bad guy robot. Hopefully he will be the main villain in the sequel. But he'll be defeated by a good guy Nike truck. I can't see enjoying this on anything other than an ironic or anthropological "human beings really made this!" type level. No matter how it plays this summer, this movie is so full of bad taste and "what the fuck?" moments that I do believe it will live on. Ten or fifteen years from now, when some theater in a college town plays it as a double feature with ROADHOUSE, it will absolutely kill.

Did the movie work on my crowd? I'm not sure. Some of the lame jokes got laughs. Some got none. There were parts obviously meant to be crowdpleasers where you would hear one person clap or laugh in the back somewhere. There was definitely alot of sarcastic wooing and clapping. But there was also some applause at the end, which I'm gonna assume was sincere. We have already seen enough reviews to know that some people can enjoy this. I talked to a guy who loved it, said it was the best movie he's seen this year, that it knew what it was and was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek and what do you expect, it's The Transformers, it's a summer blockbuster movie, it's awesome. I'm glad he enjoyed it, but none of those arguments hold water with me, and I can't help but be sad that this is what we are willing to accept as entertainment. BATMAN AND ROBIN knew what it was and was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek and what did we expect. And if just because it's Transformers it's allowed to be inept, moronic garbage, then why are we going to see a movie based on Transformers in the first place? I know DADDY DAY CAMP is gonna be awful but I don't expect these same people running out saying that was awesome because what do you expect, it's DADDY DAY CAMP.

And I know I made this point in talkbacks, and so have others, but it bears repeating. DIE HARD was a blockbuster/popcorn/summer/event movie. So was ALIENS. And TERMINATOR 2. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. STAR WARS. JAWS. ROAD WARRIOR. PREDATOR. ROBOCOP. TOTAL RECALL. THE MATRIX. LORD OF THE RINGS. You people who like your BATMAN and SPIDER-MAN and X-MEN and SUPERMAN and James Bond and LETHAL WEAPON... these are all big event movies, many of them timeless, many of them clever, well-crafted, some of them masterpieces. I am not being pretentious, I am not expecting too much, these are mainstream, crowd pleasing movies and they are what you used to hope for when you went to a summer movie. You can't realistically expect a movie as good as ALIENS every time, but that's better than resigning to the idea that "summer movie" equals "horribly made infantile disposable pap" and being excited about it anyway. If a summer movie is meant to be like TRANSFORMERS, then why the fuck aren't you people embarrassed to be going to see summer movies? At least have the decency to admit that it's a strange, possibly deviant hobby.

Everyone expects this movie to be a huge runaway hit, a moneymaking juggernaut. It happened with ARMAGEDDON and INDEPENDENCE DAY and I lived through election 2004, so certainly I can see that happening. But man oh man do I not get it. Women, especially, I have respect for, and I cannot understand them getting any sort of enjoyment out of these goofy cartoon junkpiles wrestling each other and saying things like "One shall stand and one shall fall!" If this is accepted as good entertainment then we're another step closer to the world of IDIOCRACY and the hit movie ASS.

If America loves this movie, I want a fuckin recount.

But what about my Michael Bay loving buddy? Did he like it? I wasn't sitting near him at the screening and as the movie went on I started to get concerned about what I was gonna say to him afterwards. I hoped he was having a good time, and I mean, I cannot comprehend his love for the other Bay movies. So I couldn't predict what he would think. But at the same time I could not actually picture him walking up to me with a straight face and saying "That was awesome!" And I couldn't guarantee that if that happened I wouldn't shake my head sadly, turn and walk away, our friendship forever weakened by a feeling that we just weren't from the same planet.

The credits roll. I find Mr. Armageddon. He smiles and says, "That was a piece of shit! That was fucking garbage! Terrible!"

So thank you Michael Bay for bringing the world closer together. We can have peace some day. We just can't have good robot movies.

--Vern
http://www.geocities.com/outlawvern

Fool Me Twice...Shame on...um...

Saw Transformers again tonight. Time for the full on review.

The first time I saw the movie it was with a theater full of fanboys. The kind that know that Frenzy should be a tape, but don't mind so much that he is a boombox. The kind that mind the fact that the character that was a unique character that actually spoke, not clacked and clicked like some psychopathic digital tribal language translator.



I still think he was the Jar-Jar of the movie.

When the movie ended there was silence and we all left, regardless of scenes (credit scenes) still playing. A general sense of unease.

Second time was 2 days later at a 4 pm showing on the 4th of July. General audience, it got a round of applause at the end! It was for the eye candy.

Moving on. The scenes with Bumblebee, Sam and Megan Fox (whatever her characters name was) were good. The scene where the Autobots stated their names and purposes? Lame, Jazz is just too over the top, I like the touch where he does a little breakdance move when he transforms. But the whole urban ghetto thing was just too much in that intro scene. Rachets comments on phermone levels was well done, and funny. The scene where Ironhide offers to destroy Sam's parents, retarded.

Subtlety is best but not Bay's strong point.

In fact that whole backyard garden scene was a waste of celluloid, and terribly edited. You could see entire scenes that had been removed. The rendering time spent on that could have been spent on slowing some of the combat scenes down to the point of being able to observe them.

Which is one of my biggest issues with this movie. The action. One, it slows down to near a crawl by the halfway point. The action that does occur happens so fast its only a blur. Barricade and Bumblebee, a mere blur, you can see absolutely nothing. The camera has to pan back to Barricade to show that he lost. Prime and Bonecrusher. Did you know Prime has a sword in his arm? Did you know he used it to cut off Bone crushers head? Well I had to watch it twice to really get that scene. Sure its well rendered, sure the lightning is great and real. Only it happens so fast you can't enjoy it.


After that its a blur of red, blue and tan metal as they tumble about. Whenever the animators take the camera at a distance the scene is amazing. The scene when Blackout annihilates the army base in Qatar was sick. Looked like it was straight out of Mechwarrior. Loved it. The battle between Optimus and Megatron? Ugh.



Now there they actually fight, smack talk a little. Now its a bit cheesy since its animated from the 80's but still. I can follow it. If only the focused on the scene more, gave it a few minutes to develop, get some dialogue going.

Megatron escapes from the Hoover Dam after being imprisoned for decades. He just flies off? Um, the Megatron I know would have leveled that human edifice with a massive blast from his cannon, which we see 1.5 blurred seconds of in a fight with Optimus. Now that would have been cool.

I still despise the Sector 7 addition. Lame. I hate the concept of the modern military so easily discovering a method to hurt them. Hate the complete and utter lack of character development in any of the transformers. And the Decepticons? Man, zero development. Big helicopter that kills, big tank that kills, big truck thing with venus fly trap that kills, etc.

How about the scene were Rachet brings Prime the two halves of Jazz and says he couldn't save him. Prime is there holding Jazz like a hotdog and coke talking about how they lost a friend but gained new ones. He sounded like the king in The Holy Grail after the brides father "dies".



How the heck is a 20 foot tall Autobot taken out by fire extinguishers? The way they caught Bumblebee was completely lame. A sweet ion cannon type device would have been cooler. Heck, they were reverse engineering all of Megatrons parts. (he was a super advanced nonbiological entity how did we get vaccuum tubes from that guy and not super awesome particle beam weapons?)

It was seriously like a couple of high school kids who only knew about transformers from seeing a display at Toys R Us made this movie. Zero interaction between the autobots, almost zero interaction between the decepticons.

After seeing it a second time I can say, that although it wasn't TINO (Transformers In Name Only) it wasn't close to accomplishing all that it could. It was a mile off.

sure hope they hand the franchise to someone who can manage some character development. Like how about, hmmm...SPIELBURG! Get out of the executive producer role and do something like direct a movie.

Great visual effects, good use of Peter Cullen. But that's about it. I give it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Transformers

Just got back from the movie. Went and saw the 9:15 showing.

Liked parts of it, love other parts and down right hated a few scenes and directorial decisions.

John Turturro as a Sector 7 agent was absolutely retarded. Awful.

That stupid boombox Frenzy Decepticon was the freaking Jar-Jar Binks of this movie. Hated him.

The autobots were cool. The scene at Sam's house retarded. Prime and Bonecrusher, cool. Prime and Megatron? Aborted and weak.

Tune in Wednesday when I see it again and have more time for a full review. So far my feelings run this way.

Cool movie because it has Transformers. Should have been a thousand times better for having Transformers in it. Leave out the dumb humans.

HEY!!

Feel free to comment on my witty witticisms! I don't mind! Makes me feel like I'm being read. I know I'm not and absolutely no one reads this but if you would post once in a while I would feel like someone does.

Thanks

Hey Look Over There!

Theres a new blog in town. Created by everyone's favorite neuronal jelly!

Go and see me build a house, well first wreck a house and then build it.

Check out Exostra (it's Latin check that out too)

Our Tongues Can't Repel Flavor Of That Magnitude

Best line all month. Someone tape this for me.

Top Secret? I played with this thing 5+ years ago!

Microsoft is unveiling a new top secret project "Milan" Which is now called Surface, for obvious reasons.

It's a smart coffee table sized touch screen interface thing. Manipulate objects with your hands, cut and paste text with your fingers etc.

Anyone remember the sweet desk I played with at MOMA about a zillion years ago?




Yup that's it!! Man the internet has a long memory. Well at least Microsoft will be able to put on in each home.

And if you look to your right...

You can see our brand new addition to this fine establishment. After combing the highways and byways of this fine interspace, I've discovered an interesting bit of html code. Look to this playlist as it will change over time, reflecting the waxing and waning of my auditory tastes.

Right now I'm doing the funky rock thing, ie Talking Heads and Flaming Lips. I surprised Lemon Jelly didn't make the cut. Well, I'll rectify that in a upcoming playlist, you just can't miss a remix of William Shatner doing slam poetry.

Enjoy! Oh and don't forget to shut it off before you watch one of my movies.

I missed it!!!!

On May 29th, 1453, Constantinople fell to Mehmet II and the Ottoman Empire, over a thousand years after its foundation, and serving nearly that amount of time as the sole capitol of the surviving Roman Empire.

So here's to the last Great Siege!!! A 54 day extravaganza that ended because some dumb Italian (Venetian) left the door open.



So I think I might use this as an excuse to remember the fall of the Roman Empire, look next year for an "Istanbul was once Constantinople" Party!!

If only some concept guys had locked Lucas in a closet

The 3 prequels might have been amazing instead of craptastic.

Steam Punkish movie?

It has many elements of a sweet Steampunk movie, granted the name is not nearly Steampunkish enough.

Professor McGrundil's Magnificent Contrivence for the Circumnavigation of Tergiversation and Verity.

The compass has something to do with telling the truth...maybe. Anyway, that's a much better Steampunk like name for it.

Either I'm Growing Up or Dying Inside

We're soon moving into a new home, a great home. One with 400 more square feet than my current home, one with a ridiculously small amount of closet space.

And so we are downsizing. Which means...Yard sale.

So I took my vintage 1967 Battleship game and put it on the alter of reduced storage capacity. I also put my 533 card collection of Star Trek the Next Generation cards, and my Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game by Games Workshop. I had only finished painting the elves. My prized collection of Dorito Star Wars hologram cards and some forgotten Warhammer figurines I never painted. My mint unopened Star Wars Pez Dispenser collection, and my Star Wars Limited Edition Trading card game, along with some Star Wars Galaxy trading cards. Sensing a pattern?

And assortment of video games I no longer play, and some ancient Viewfinder slide wheels.

All to reduce clutter, and to buy me a sweet grill!! I think any extra cash will go towards

WAVE 6!!!!!!!!!!


Which just showed up at Walmart!!! My wait is over!!! Samurai archers here I come!!!!

The yard sale will be this Saturday baring any rain, which I hereby prohibit. There will be no rain allowed this Saturday. Just to be clear.

Come one come all and buy my precious things that I have so lovingly kept these many years and am being forced to let go by that most dire of circumstances. Lack of shelf space.

It Must Be Declared

That the Great and Illustrious DredBen, Consumer of 7 White Castle Sliders, Purveyor of Endless Amounts of Nintendo DS's, Capable of Winning a Land War in Asia, has begun his weekend Battle Royale Extravaganza in the quiet New Jersey countryside. The Pine Barrens will shudder as the festivities rage throughout the night.

and I sit, in my dark office, typing about it on Blogger.

Crush Your Enemy, See Them Driven Before You, and Hear the Lamentations of the Women.

Have fun buddy, I'll be at the next one.

It's Memorial Weekend!!

Just finished watching the season finale of Lost. Whole crap was that awesome!!! Can't wait till next season!! Much better finale than Heroes, it pains me to say it.

It's a pity that this region remains completely depleted of all Wave 6 Heroscape units. Wallymart, Toys R Us, nobody stocks anything but endless rows of Wave 5, pretty much reviled as the worst wave yet. However, it is my good fortune to have come into possession of a single pack of ZOMBIES!! Woohoo!! And at 60 points a piece I think I might need to pick up a few more!!

School is almost finished. I love teaching but those kids are sucking me dry. I really needed this long weekend.

Sorry this post stinks but I just don't have it in me to make a super cool one.

It has come to my attention...

That there is a far more appropriate name for the fiance.

One that was used in abundance during Zombie Plague games and when else did she blow herself up? Oh yes, that card game with the cowboys I completely forget it's name.

She is now....wait for it....MERRYDEATH!!

Congrats on a fine fine name.

Thanks Rover for the slap on the head, see ya tonight, can't wait to see those mobile workstations.

A Huge Momentous Life Changing Event

No, I haven't started the semi-annual toe cleaning extravaganza. My buddy Shoop has just popped the question to his now fiance, Unibomber. Are we excited? Absolutely.

Now the big question on everyone's mind is....WHAT TO DO FOR THE BACHELOR PARTY??!!

I'll start dreaming up t-shirt designs immediately.

A dictionary I can love

Man it looks like something Data would use. The sweetest dictionary/thesaurus ever!!!

I'll use this for everything, move over Roget!!

GIANT NAZI ROBOTS!!!!!!!!!

Agh! This is the coolest thing I have seen in weeks!!!!!

WEEKS!!

The coolest!!! Giant Nazi Death Robot fighting at Pearl Harbor!!

Just scroll down and click on the movie.

Way less creepy

Same band only way less creepy. This one was a huge dance floor anthem that was done by The Knife back in 03 than redone by a dude name Jose Gonzalez for acoustic guitar. They plugged it into a Bravia LCD commercial with 250,000 superballs, not one lick of CGI. I'm serious, that's 100% real.

Um...wow.

Discovered a new band. I do that on occasion. This one's Swedish. And well wow.

They're called The Knife.

If I had to sum up their sound in a sentence it would be this. They're as if Bjork dropped acid and then was promptly eaten by a computer that was slightly psychopathic.

If that wasn't crazy enough their latest video was directed by some Japanese director who greatly desires to create the most disturbing Target commercials even seen by man.

Just watch...


I love them but that video is twisted. I mean seriously, Aphex Twin needs to look out because those forcep clasping mini's are creepy.

In case your Jonesin for Empire

Pretty much sums it up.

Best Week of Work Ever

As some of you know I have the esteemed honor of shaping our future and just wanted to let everyone know that I felt that it might be possible for our future to not be as nearly bleak as first anticipated. I'm now only reasoning that our future will be slightly more depressing than the dystopia seen in Children of Men. DVD comes out SOON!!

Whatever this is, it sure the hell ain't Lexington

(torn page)...ome weeks since we've seen anything that resembles Middlesex. We have hiked for miles and have not seen a single living soul, nor farmstead or road . Samuel is becoming more and more concerned about our whereabouts, he is certain we are no longer in the Colonies.
February 23rd, One thing is for certain I am glad the weather is more fair. The clime is altogether wonderful. Last night we marched through the last of what seemed an endless stretch of woods and have come upon a pleasant stream. Samuel Thompson and Joseph Nevitt have scouted out downstream to see if they can find any sign of habitation. We have added some sort of odd deer to our provisions. It did not run when we approached it. An easy hunt, although the meat was bitter and had an odd smell.

February 24th, Our scouts have returned. Samuel and Joseph told of a small stone fortress on the banks of the river only a few more miles downstream. It seems to be protecting a land approach to a natural harbor at the streams mouth. They saw no one and were careful not to be seen. We have decided to make ourselves known and see if the inhabitants are friendly. A decision that Timothy Burnap was strongly contrary to. Yet, Timothy has always been contrary ever since that musket ball took his ear at Braintree.

February 25th, We took a day to prepare for our revealing. We are certain now that the tower is inhabitated. We have seen a lone individual pacing the battlements, he could be Pequot, but the others highly doubt it. I suppose I should agree as what we know mainly comes from our fathers since those savages where finished years ago. But who else would be carrying a bow?

February 26th, We have revealed ourselves and have been welcomed inside! The fortress is merely a simple empty tower. Rain stained canvas is all they have to keep them covered and their provisions dry. The Indian is clearly not an Indian. His name is Syvarris and Joseph is certain he's French, but with those ears I doubt he's from anywhere near Europe. I think he might be a Bulgar or something Turkish. His accent is horrible to hear but we can understand one another. He had been trying to tell us about a doorway for several hours over dinner, smoked eels, but he finally gave up and went to pace on the battlements. Sleep will come easily tonight.

February 28th, After a few days of getting used to that high lisp of his Timothy is sure he understands Syvarris completely. Timothy told us that we somehow slipped out of our world and left our bivouac on Cambridge commons and have entered a new world. He states that the same happened to Syvarris and to several other groups from other worlds. There was a brief row about this when Samuel called him a liar but after talking further with Syvarris and then meeting some of these others, the debate was pretty much ended. In the middle of this little scuffle Syvarris interrupted and introduced us to some new lodgers. He was very careful to say that they were friends and although different would help us get home. Picture a whitewashed Franklin stove crossed with a butterchurn and add limbs. Syvarris brought in 3 men in steel suits, all in white. We were a bit astonished but we all loved to play as knights as kids, so the real surprise was when we discovered that they were empty.

March 1st, You get use to the voices after a while. Completely serene, like chimes in an empty room. And no matter how difficult a situation became, no matter how many of those blue skinned savages leapt howling out of the woods they never lost their nerve. Every shot from their weapons hit their mark. Believe me they had guns unlike any we had ever seen. No smoke, no wadding, no balls. Just a flash of blue and the enemy was chunks of meat and a lingering crimson mist. And they rarely ever missed. We knew we were nowhere near Middlesex.

March10th, Syvarris has come to us with news of dangerous portent. Several rival factions have levied troops and were marshaling to war. Our fortress was a key position and vital to using the river to ferry troops and equipment to the upper marches. He said that we should brush up on our Latin. I can't tell you how I confuse my ablative and genitive cases in the first declension nouns. Was it matellarum or matellis? We joked and spoke in Latin for the rest of the evening, Joseph was actually quite good as he was planning on becoming a priest, well before meeting Sarah Ross anyway.

March 11th, The morning mist has cleared and there is no doubt this will be my last entry. How we got here I have no idea. I don't even know where here is. We are stranded in some isolated tower with a long eared lisping gent with a bow and three walking, I can't even think of what to call them. We all miss home and now there are 3 large groups of very angry individuals camped just outside of rifle range.

You won't believe this but we count half a dozen Roman, that's right, Roman archers. Helmets, armor, arrows, the real deal. Syvarris is certain the same event that brought us here also pulled them from their time. There are many other individuals, all different and very angry. There can be no doubt, Syvaris tells us, that we will fight today, and he is uncertain what the outcome will be.

We were eating a hasty meal of venison sausage and dried fruit when Syvarris let lose a volly of arrows from the battlement. War had never been quiet where we came from but the sound of agony is the same true no matter what world your in. A shriek of pain declared his aim was true. He shouted down to us that we should get up and bring all of our ammunition with us. He continued to loose arrows out across the battlement.

The three suits of armor quickly made it to the top of the tower while Joseph, and Samuel hauled wadding and bags of musket balls up the ladder. I had just looked up to see how our archer was doing when his head just disappeared. He toppled right into the dying embers of our breakfast fire, scattering pans and smashing crockery, his bow still in his grasp.

By the time I had made it up to the battlement the entire phalanx of Roman archers had been blasted to pieces across a low ridge. The 3 suits of armor took aim at some Asian looking fellows and blew one of them all over his comrades. The other two charged for the gate. I could hear their feeble blows against that huge door. 2 of the armor suits took positions above the door and I heard this wet pulping sound as one of them was blown to bits by those blue guns of theirs. Yet in moments both of these mighty beings were cast back from the crenellations, their armor peeled back and sparking. The both joined Syvarris in a broken smoldering heap. The last one turned and began firing upon this dark knight, and it was truely a knight. He was mired in one of the many streams leading to the fortress and his armor suddenly blossomed titanic gaping holes. You could see clear through his body. He stood for a moment and looked at the morning light streaming from his chest and collapsed into the creek, water running over and now through him to the bay.

In time soon this remaining suit of armor was struck by a unseen assailant, the shattered remains of his torso and head blasted out of the tower wall. His legs slumped against the cold sweating stone. It was only us four remaining. A blue angelic being flew at the tower, massive lance in her hand, we all four took aim and it dropped like a stone.


We saw that three man like individuals on a low hill seemed to be casing all the casualties on our side and so we took aim and fired. It wasn't long until Joseph and Samuel were no longer with us. Grievous wounds those weapons inflicted, as if they had been hit with cannons.

March 11th, noonish

So it is only Timothy and myself. This will most likely be my last entry. We have decided on a rouse, the gunmen on the outside are lethal and we will be killed if we try to attack them from the tower walls. We will open the door and lure them inside and hopefully dispatch them quickly when they enter the tower. We have rigged the door to open on it's own and we have each two rifles. We can not figure how to use the suits weaponry and they are very heavy.


Timothy is pulling the rope, if we die it will be with a gun in each hand. To hell with this place.


The Mon Arac parchment seems to only to have suffered damage to the first third of the writing. Several other fragments have been found that seem to be part of this same piece but extensive fire damage has made any true conclusion difficult to substantiate. It is clear that both the remaining individuals were slain just prior to this last entry as has been witnessed by Sanctioned Temporal Witnesses. The location and time which is stated as being 102.45.21 have been marked as historically significant and forbidden to both recreational viewing and temporal tampering.

Aevum et Spatium Derigo

Holy Paragon of Alternating Current!!

It was merely an interesting movie until it name dropped Nikola Tesla and brought in Gollum!!!! Whole Crap did that movie immediately register on my "This movie is about to rock my shorts-dar" And it did...well I think the snooty Hugh Jackman should have either taken over the world with an army of gimpy clones or started the largest haberdashery ever seen on the face of the earth. But it still rocked!

Haven't seen it? Well, it's got Micheal Caine, of whom we are well pleased ever since he was so nearly crucified to death in "The Man Who Would Be King".

Do yourself a favor and engross yourself in some Kipling.

A Title is born

The new addition to the Proteinstar clan has now been named. He will hence forth be known as 7 of 3.

If you need to question the origins of such a name you are neither geeky enough or knowledgeable of my son enough to warrant such information.

Who Doesn't love Blip-Hop and Stop Motion?

You have to love stop motion on the white board!!

If you don't watch it don't talk to me...

Simply put Heroes on NBC Monday nights at 9pm is the best 1 hour of television ever created by mankind. Well if Spock and Kirk got into the ring with Vader and C3PO, that would be the best 1 hour, more like 15 seconds of screaming, ever but moving on.

If you missed it you need to go online to NBC.com and watch the entire episode. It was that good. If your confused because you don't understand the plot, or the characters, or why some guy can go all Chernobyl than your a total lamer.

Still working on the nickname for my little broodling. I'm thinking something like Cygnus. That would be sweet. Only because it's the sweetest super huge spaceship teetering on the edge of oblivion name ever. And why wouldn't an 8lb lump of 50% of my genetic material die to have a sweet name like that? With that said I haven't named the others in my clan. Perhaps we here in The Battle of Hastings only name the males. It seems likely and I'm sure I can use precedent to support it.

At Long Last!

He has arrived!

The one ordained to play Heroscape and BattleLore with his father well into the night.

The one who will perfect the Sicilian Defense, and then Lead the Fellowship to Victory over the Lidless Eye.

And his first thoughts...



Well, not to far from the tree huh?

His moniker will be forthcoming.

Move over UNIVAC!!!

Capable of over 64,000 processes in a single instant!!! Unbreakable codes! Simulations that took Blue-Green years to complete are finished in a flash! Genetically tailored medicines! Everything from Bio-tech to Physics will see huge gains! Makes my Compaq look like a doorstop. What is this thing? It's called a quantum computer and it might already be here.

NYC COMICON!!!!

After Gencon this might be next...

It's been a while...

Well thought I'd brush some dust of this old blog and see if anyone still reads this thing. It would be interesting since no one really read it to begin with.

Things of note...baby is almost here. I'm accepting male name suggestions.

Other things of note...I'm working on a large scale zombie boardgame, chance of completion...zero.

I finally hooked up my home stereo to the PC, funneling an endless stream of mp3's straight to a system worthy of playing them.

I sold my Atari 2600 and Genesis...sniff. Sold my Battletech manuals and sourcebooks. This massive sell off of equipment and gear is all in preparation of my master plan.

I find it interesting that the voice of Optimus Prime is the voice of Eeyore.

There's a nice podcast from a Heroscape designer here He reveals that there will be a brand new master set with all new terrain and units!!! WOOHOO!!!

OK thats it.

Proteinstar out

Just because I resemble it...

I don't mean the band...I mean the genre.

In summation:

"Euros have indirect competition to maximize efficiency and earn favors of the king.

Ameritrash has nukes." -Mixo

MLK

Spoke with some of my students the other day about the significance of Martin Luther King and his sacrifice for social injustice and so on. I asked what they thought about him and if they thought his death was meaningful. They said they could care less about him and that he was an idiot for getting shot. These are inner city African American's saying this. I was a bit shocked to say the least.

Well, I appreciate the day off anyway.

In other news, the website Pandora.com has awesome streaming audio. Check it out.